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Former Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver faces charges of attempted murder.
1975 (Nov 19)
Former Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver arrived in California in federal custody to face charges of attempted murder. Cleaver, age forty, was to be charged in connection with a shootout with Oakland police on April 6, 1968, in which Panther Bobby Hutton, age seventeen, was killed and a police officer was wounded. Cleaver had earlier ended his seven years of exile abroad to have his day in court. After having lived in Cuba, Guinea, Algeria, North Korea, and France, Cleaver said his voluntary return was prompted by his belief that the United States had changed to the extent that he could now receive a fair trial. Cleaver's Soul on Ice, revealing intimate details of his life in the ghetto and imprisonment, had become a minor classic in revolutionary literature.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.